left behind the earliest specimens of Italian letter-writing. These letters are written in a very florid style, and are perhaps more poetical than his verses, which certainly fall very far short of the sweet new style." Óf all his letters the best is that To the Florentines, from which a brief extract is given Canto VI. Note 76.

82. Corso Donati, the brother of Forese who is here speaking, and into whose mouth nothing but Ghibelline wrath could have put these words. Corso was the leader of the Neri in Florence, and a partisan of Charles de Valois. His death is recorded by Villani, VIII. 96, and is thus described by Napier, Flor. Hist., I. 407

The popularity of Corso was now thoroughly undermined, and the priors, after sounding the Campana for a general assembly of the armed citizens, laid a formal accusation before the Podestà Piero Branca d' Agobbio against him for conspiring to overthrow the.liberties of his country, and endeavouring to make himself Tyrant of Florence: he was immediately cited to appear, and, not complying, from a reasonable distrust of his judges, was within one hour, against all legal forms, condemned to lose his head, as a rebel and traitor to the commonwealth.

"Not willing to allow the culprit more time for an armed resistance than had been given for legal vindication, the Seignory, preceded by the Gonfalonier of justice, and followed by the Podestà, the captain of the people, and the executor,-all attended by their guards and officers,-issued from the palace; and with the whole civic force marshalled in companies, with banners flying, moved forward to execute an illegal sentence against a single citizen, who nevertheless

stood undaunted on his defence.

"Corso, on first hearing of the prosecution, had hastily barricaded all the approaches to his palace, but, disabled by the gout, could only direct the necessary operations from his bed; yet thus helpless, thus abandoned by all but his own immediate friends and vassals; suddenly condemned to death; encompassed by the bitterest foes, with the whole force of the republic banded

against him, he never cowered for an instant, but courageously determined to resist, until succoured by Uguccione della Faggiola, to whom he had sent for aid. This attack continued during the greater part of the day, and gene rally with advantage to the Donati, for the people were not unanimous, and many fought unwillingly, so that, if the Rossi, Bardi, and other friends had joined, and Uguccioni's forces arrived, it would have gone hard with the citi zens. The former were intimidated, the latter turned back on hearing how matters stood; and then only did Corso's adherents lose heart and slink from the barricades, while the towns men pursued their advantage by break ing down a garden wall opposite the Stinche prisons and taking their enemy in the rear. This completed the dis aster, and Corso, seeing no chance re maining, fled towards the Casentino; but, being overtaken by some Cata lonian troopers in the Florentine ser vice, he was led back a prisoner from Rovezzano. After vainly endeavouring to bribe them, unable to support the indignity of a public execution at the hands of his enemies, he let himself fall from his horse, and, receiving seve ral stabs in the neck and flank from the Catalan lances, his body was left bleeding on the road, until the monks of San Salvi removed it to their con vent, where he was interred next morning with the greatest privacy. Thus perished Corso Donati, 'the wisest and most worthy knight of his time; the best speaker, the most expe rienced statesman; the most renowned, the boldest, and most enterprising noble man in Italy: he was handsome in person and of the most gracious man ners, but very worldly, and caused infinite disturbance in Florence on account of his ambition.’*

People now began to repose, and his unhappy death was often and variously discussed, according to the feelings of friendship or enmity that moved the speaker; but in truth, his life was dangerous, and his death reprehensible. He was a knight of great mind and name,

• Villani, VIII. Ch. 96,

gentle in manners as in blood; of a fine figure even in his old age, with a beautiful countenance, delicate features, and a fair complexion; pleasing, wise; and an eloquent speaker. His attention was ever fixed on important things; he was intimate with all the great and noble, had an extensive influence, and was famous throughout Italy. He was an enemy of the middle classes and their supporters, beloved by the troops, but full of malicious thoughts, wicked, and artful. He was thus basely murdered by a foreign soldier, and his fellow-citizens well knew the man, for he was instantly conveyed away: those who ordered his death were Rosso della Tosa and Pazzino de' Pazzi, as is commonly said by all; and some bless him and some the contrary. Many believe that the two said knights killed him, and I, wishing to ascertain the truth, inquired diligently, and found what I have said to be true.'* Such is the character of Corso Donati, which has come down to us from two authors who must have been personally acquainted with this distinguished chief, but opposed to each other in the general politics of their country."

See also Inf. VI. Note 52. 99. Virgil and Statius.

He seized with sudden force the frighted fair. 'Twas Eurytus began: his bestial kind His crime pursued; and each, as pleased his mind, Or her whom chance presented, took: the feast An image of a taken town expressed.

"The cave resounds with female shrieks; we
rise

Mad with revenge, to make a swift reprise :
And Theseus first, What frenzy has possessed,
To wrong Pirithous, and not him alone,
O Eurytus,' he cried, 'thy brutal breast,
But, while I live, two friends conjoined in

one?'"

125. Judges vii. 5, 6: "So he brought down the people unto the water: and the Lord said unto Gideon, Every one that lappeth of the water with his tongue, as a dog lappeth, him shalt thou set by himself; likewise every one that boweth down upon his knees to drink. And the number of them that lapped, putting their hand to their mouth, were three hundred men; but all the rest of the people bowed down upon their knees to drink water."

139. The Angel of the Seventh Circle.

CANTO XXV.

105. Dante had only so far round the circle, as to come in sight of the second of these trees, which from distance to distance encircle the mountain.

116. In the Terrestrial Paradise on the top of the mountain.

121. The Centaurs, born of Ixion and the Cloud, and having the "double breasts" of man and horse, became drunk with wine at the marriage of Hippodamia and Pirithous, and strove to carry off the bride and the other women by violence. Theseus and the rest of the Lapithæ opposed them, and drove them from the feast. This famous battle is described at great length by Ovid, Met. XII., Dryden's Tr. :

"For one, most brutal of the brutal brood, Or whether wine or beauty fired his blood, Or both at once, beheld with lustful eyes The bride; at once resolved to make his prize. Down went the board; and fastening on her hair,

* Dino Compagni, III. 76.

3. When the sign of Taurus reached the meridian, the sun, being in Aries, would be two hours beyond it. It is now two o'clock of the afternoon. Scorpion is the sign opposite Taurus. 15. Shakespeare, Hamlet, I. 2:—

"And did address

The

Itself to motion, like as it would speak." 22. Meleager was the son of Eneus and Althæa, of Calydon. At his birth the Fates were present and predicted his future greatness. Clotho said that he would be brave; Lachesis, that he would be strong; and Atropos, that he would live as long as the brand upon the fire remained unconsumed.

Ovid, Met. VIII. :—

"There lay a log unlighted on the hearth, When she was labouring in the throes of birth For th' unborn chief; the fatal sisters came, Then on the rock a scanty measure place And raised it up, and tossed it on the flame. Of vital flax, and turned the wheel apace; And turning sung, To this red brand and thes, O new-born babe, we give an equal destiny;

So vanished out of view. The frighted dame Sprung hasty from her bed, and quenched the flame.

The log, in secret locked, she kept with care, And that, while thus preserved, preserved her heir."

Meleager distinguished himself in the Argonautic expedition, and afterwards in the hunt of Calydon, where he killed the famous boar, and gave the boar's head to Atalanta; and when his uncles tried to take possession of it, he killed them also. On hearing this, and seeing the dead bodies, his mother in a rage threw the brand upon the fire again, and, as it was consumed, Meleager perished.

Mr. Swinburne, Atalanta in Calydon:

CHORUS.

"When thou dravest the men.

Of the chosen of Thrace,

None turned him again

Nor endured he thy face

"Mother, I dying with unforgetful tongue Hail thee as holy and worship thee as just Who art unjust and unholy; and with my knees

Would worship, but thy fire and subtlety, Dissundering them, devour me; for these limbs Are as light dust and crumblings from mine

urn

Before the fire has touched them; and my face

As a dead leaf or dead foot's mark on snow,
And all this body a broken barren tree
That was so strong, and all this flower of life
Disbranched and desecrated miserably,
And minished all that god-like muscle and
might

And lesser than a man's: for all my veins Fail me, and all mine ashen life burns 1 down."

37. The dissertation which Dante here puts into the mouth of Statius may be found also in a briefer prose form in the Convito, IV. 21. It so much excites the enthusiasm of Varchi, that he declares it alone sufficient to prove

light from a terrible place.

CENEUS.

"Thou shouldst die as he dies

For whom none sheddeth tears;

Filling thine eyes

And fulfilling thine ears

pher, and theologian of the highest order; and goes on to say: "I not only confess, but I swear, that as many times as I have read it, which day and night are more than a thousand, my wonder and astonishment have always

beauty, the splendour of spears.

CHORUS.

"In the ears of the world

It is sung, it is told,

And the light thereof hurled
And the noise thereof rolled

therein new beauties and new instruction, and consequently new difficulties."

This subject is also discussed in part by Thomas Aquinas, Sum. Theol., I Quæst. cxix., De propagatione hominis

fleece of gold.

MELEAGER.

"Would God ye could carry me

Forth of all these;

Heap sand and bury me

By the Chersonese

Milton, in his Latin poem, De Idea Platonica, has touched upon a theme somewhat akin to this, but in a manner Perhaps to make it seem very remote. no two passages could better show the difference between Dante and Milton,

thunder of Pontic seas.

He first, the full of ages, born
With the old pale polar morn,
Sole, yet all; first visible thought,
After which the Deity wrought?
Twin-birth with Pallas, not remain
Doth he in Jove's o'ershadowed brain;
But though, of wide communion,
Dwells apart, like one alone;
And fills the wondering embrace,
(Doubt it not) of size and place.
Whether, companion of the stars,
With their tenfold round he errs;
Or inhabits with his lone
Nature in the neighbouring moon;
Or sits with body-waiting souls,
Dozing by the Lethæan pools:-
Or whether, haply, placed afar
In some blank region of our star,
He stalks, an unsubstantial heap,
Humanity's giant archetype;
Where a loftier bulk he rears
Than Atlas, grappler of the stars,

And through their shadow-touched abodes
Brings a terror to the gods,

Not the seer of him had sight,

Who found in darkness depths of light;
His travelled eyeballs saw him not

In all his mighty gulfs of thought :-
Him the farthest-footed good,,
Pleiad Mercury, never showed
To any poet's wisest sight
In the silence of the night :-
News of him the Assyrian priest t
Found not in his sacred list,
Though he traced back old king Nine,
And Belus, elder name divine,
And Osiris, endless famed.
Not the glory, triple-named,
Thrice great Hermes, though his eye.
Read the shapes of all the skies,
Left him in his sacred verse
Revealed to Nature's worshippers.

"O Plato! and was this a dream
Of thine in bowery Academe?
Wert thou the golden tongue to tell
First of this high miracle,

And charm him to thy schools below?
O call thy poets back, if so,
Back to the state thine exiles call,
Thou greatest fabler of them all;
Or follow through the self-same gate,
Thou, the founder of the state.'

*

103. Æneid, VI. 723, Davidson's Tr.:

"In the first place, the spirit within nourishes the heavens, the earth, and watery plains, the moon's enlightened orb, and the Titanian stars; and the mind, diffused through all the members, actuates the whole frame, and mingles with the vast body of the universe. Thence the race of men and beasts, the vital principles of the flying kind, and the monsters which the ocean breeds under its smooth plain. These principles have the active force of fire, and are of a heavenly original, so far as they are not clogged by noxious bodies, blunted by earth-born limbs and dying members. Hence they fear and desire, grieve and rejoice; and, shut up in darkness and a gloomy prison, lose sight of their native skies. Even when with the last beams

of light their life is gone, yet not every ill, nor all corporeal stains, are quite removed from the unhappy beings; and it is absolutely necessary that many imperfections which have long been joined to the soul should be in marvellous ways increased and riveted therein. Therefore are they afflicted with punishments, and pay the penalties of their former ills. Some, hung on high, are spread out to the empty winds; in others, the guilt not done away is washed

out in a vast watery abyss, or burned away in fire. We each endure his own manes, thence are we conveyed along the spacious Elysium, and we, the happy few, possess the fields of bliss; till length of time, after the fixed period is elapsed, hath done away the inherent stain, and hath left the pure celestial reason, and the fiery energy of the simple spirit."

121. "God of clemency supreme; the church hymn, sung at matins on Saturday morning, and containing a prayer for purity.

128. Luke i. 34: "Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?"

131. Helice, or Callisto, was a daughter of Lycaon king of Arcadia. She was one of the attendant nymphs of Diana, who discarded her on account of an amour with Jupiter, for which Juno turned her into a bear. Arcas was the offspring of this amour. Jupiter changed them to the constellations of the Great and Little Bear.

Ovid, Met. II., Addison's Tr. :—

"But now her son had fifteen summers told, Fierce at the chase, and in the forest bold; When, as he beat the woods in quest of prey,

He chanced to rouse his mother where she lay.
She knew her son, and kept him in her sight,
And fondly gazed: the boy was in a fright,
And aimed a pointed arrow at her breast,
And would have slain his mother in the beast;
But Jove forbad, and snatched them through

the air

5. It is near sunset, and the western sky is white, as the sky always is in the neighbourhood of the sun.

12. A ghostly or spiritual body.

41. Pasiphae, wife of Minos, king of Crete, and mother of the Minotaur. Virgil, Eclogue VI. 45, Davidson's Tr. :

"And he soothes Pasiphae in her passion for the snow-white bull: happy woman if herds had never been! Ah, ill-fated maid, what madness seized thee? The daughters of Proetus with imaginary lowings filled the fields; yet none of them pursued such vile embraces of a beast, however they might dread the plough about their necks, and often feel for horns on their smooth foreheads. Ah, ill-fated maid, thou now art roaming on the mountains! He, resting his snowy side on the soft hyacinth, ruminates the blanched herbs under some gloomy oak, or courts some female in the numerous herd."

43. The Riphæan mountains are in the north of Russia. The sands are the sands of the deserts.

59. Beatrice. 62. The highest XXVII.

heaven.

Par.

78. In one of Cæsar's triumphs the Roman soldiery around his chariot called him "Queen;" thus reviling him for his youthful debaucheries with Nicomedes, king of Bithynia.

87. The cow made by Dædalus.

92. Guido Guinicelli, the best of the Italian poets before Dante, flourished in the first half of the thirteenth century. He was a native of Bologna, but of his life nothing is known. His most celebrated poem is a Canzone on the Nature of Love, which goes far to justify the warmth and tenderness of Dante's praise. Rossetti, Early Italian Poets, under the title of The Gentle Heart :p. 24, gives the following version of it, "Within the gentle heart Love shelters him,

As birds within the green shade of the